


A Moment in the Sun

by WrithingBeneathYou



Category: Naruto
Genre: But a good soulmate, M/M, Madara is a terrible friend, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:15:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21573613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WrithingBeneathYou/pseuds/WrithingBeneathYou
Summary: Ever since that first day on the river, Madara knows the only thing Tobirama ever lost track of—orderly, fastidious annoyance that his soulmate is—was Hashirama.
Relationships: Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Madara
Comments: 36
Kudos: 771





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raendown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raendown/gifts).



> This is a product of me smashing into a friend's inbox and screaming “ **okay, so, Madatobi ‘The things you lose are found by your soulmate’ except the thing Tobi keeps losing is Hashirama.** " lol

Another deep, bracing inhale and Madara thinks he can keep his temper and his katon contained if only to preserve his cup of tea. It’s so exceedingly rare that he’s afforded an afternoon away from the tower. One without clanmates or husbands to distract him from the simple pleasure of a sun-warmed engawa beneath him, a pot of tea all to himself, and the gentle call of songbirds as they catch insects above the koi pond. He’s grateful to be alive in a time where such domestic moments can exist, though for how long, he’s not sure. Another of Hashirama’s depressive episodes and he’s going to start the war all over again just to spite him.

“Madara,” Hashirama whines, appearing out of nowhere and flinging himself across his shoulders in a haphazard sprawl of hair and too-long arms. “You have to hide me!”

“Absolutely not, you menace.” Why Madara tolerates his incessant bullshit is beyond him. At this point he attributes it to learned helplessness. That and the fact that Tobirama would make his existence an absolute living hell if he were to maim the man they both love and barely tolerate in equal measure. 

At the edge of his senses, bright pinpoints of mokuton flit around the village, leading Tobirama’s deep, raging current on a merry chase. He takes a deliberate sip of tea and wonders what exactly his husband was trying to make Hashirama do, or caught him not doing, to work him up to this level of desperation.

“If you don’t, you’ll never see me again. Your best friend will be gone forever,” Hashirama pleads, voice ratcheting up as he bunches Madara’s haori in his fists and buries his face against his neck. There’s a thick, ominous sniffle and Madara can only hope the inevitable wetness doesn’t follow, just this once.

One afternoon where he can be left in peace without snot smeared down his shoulder.

If only he could be so lucky.

“Please, please, please,  _ please _ !”

Of course there are tears too, because the world is unfair and the kami hate him. Madara sighs, still not moved enough to put down his delicate ceramic cup. There was a time when he would have torn down the moon just to bring Hashirama’s smile back, but that time has long since passed and the novelty has worn off. Now his best friend and brother-in-law is every bit as much of a pain in the ass as Izuna is.

He loves them both, but fire’s balls he wants to drown them sometimes.

“Good. If I let him have you then maybe I’ll have a moment’s peace,” he snaps, though there’s no true anger in it. “The hell did you do this time anyways?” Because it had to have been something truly monumental to have Tobirama’s chakra flaring so violently, making the surface of the koi pond thrash even from half a village away.

Hashirama laughs sheepishly, his ugly, wracking sobs stopping with suspicious abruptness.

“I forgot to review the Nara proposal,” he admits, wiping his face clean on Madara’s mantle and deftly stealing his cup to take a long, brutish draught. When he hands it back drained, Madara stares down at the dregs with fire in his eyes and hate in his heart.

“Then I accidentally spilled my tea on it.”

A long, telling pause.

“And threw it in the waste basket. Tobi, uh, didn’t take that well.”

“ _ You did what _ ?”

The Nara proposal, the one application to the village that has taken going on five months of legislative brawling just to get the language of the contract in order. Five months, uncountable meetings, and more aneurysms than any one man should be able to come back from, Iryo ninjutsu master or not.

Suddenly, the interruption of Madara’s paradise isn’t anywhere near as much of an inconvenience. In fact, he almost wishes he had his Sharingan activated to immortalize this single, pristine instance in time—the moment when he can finally ruin Hashirama as recompense for the twenty-year long headache he’s had pulsing between his temples.

“Oh, Hashirama, my longest, dearest friend,” he croons, face splitting into a grin that has even Hashirama’s dark complexion blanching. There’s a slight wince—exceedingly subtle and only evident from having known each other as long as they have—from which Madara surmises that one of Hashirama’s wood clones has fallen.

“What kind of soulmate would I be if I didn’t return the things Tobirama lost?”

Ever since that first day on the river, the only thing Tobirama ever lost track of—orderly, fastidious annoyance that his husband is—was Hashirama.

“Madara wait!” Hashirama says, scrabbling away with growing horror.

It’s incredibly satisfying to watch him backpedal and trip over his own kimono. Still, instilling a little fear isn’t enough to make up for Madara’s adulterated time off or pilfered tea. Nowhere near enough.

“I would be undeserving of him if I let him languish, not knowing…” He lets his statement trail off, the implication clear.

“You wouldn’t!”

Laughing long and loud, Madara throws his head back and releases a sharp spike of chakra, setting loose a raging conflagration that races up through the air with a roaring whoosh. The heat of it threatens to steal the moisture from his eyes, but his joy keeps them wet. Throat clicking, he lets go of the jutsu and guffaws until his stomach aches at the ludicrous spectacle of their Hokage running for his life. 

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tobirama comes home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RAE! <3 <3 <3

A pleasant breeze sets the leaves of a cherry tree to dancing in Hashirama’s wake.

It’s a beautiful thing, slender and too young yet to fruit, but hale from being tended with love. First planted in the garden as a symbol of unity between the Uchiha and Senju clans, it serves as a visible reminder of the sweet things that can still grow from soil made fertile by blood.

More importantly, it was Hashirama’s wedding gift when Madara first discovered Tobirama to be his soul-mate.

Smiling, Madara lets steam tickle his nose before inhaling deeply and taking another sip of tea. One of the world’s softest pleasures is watching their marital garden with its singular cherry tree sway and flutter in the dappled afternoon light. Another is imagining the absolute thrashing Hashirama is going to get for not only ruining months’ worth of diplomacy in a single afternoon, but also managing to trample a stand of Tobirama’s beloved water irises in his mad dash to hide.

The telltale bloom of chakra behind him has Madara burying his amusement in his cup. 

“ _Where_?” Tobirama snarls in lieu of a greeting as he leaps down nimbly from the roof and storms over to where Madara sits on the edge of the engawa. Each heavy footfall makes the tea kettle rattle on its tray, winning a dry, unimpressed glower from his husband. Predictably, Tobirama returns Madara’s dark expression with one of his own, but curtails whatever scathing barb he was about to sling.

They’re both well aware that dramatic flares of pique are strictly relegated to evening hours, when proper resolution can be had on the futon. It’s not a new house-rule—the first they made, actually—and one they’ve abided by with fidelity, if not grace. Tobirama is nothing if not a quick learner.

“And hello to you, too. I take it your day hasn’t been anywhere near as relaxing as mine,” Madara says, voice rising and falling with a teasing lilt. He calmly sets his cup back onto the tray, the tinkle of ceramic light and cheery in contrast to the oppressive squall of chakra swirling about Tobirama’s person, bending light and swallowing sound like the eye-wall of a storm.

“Where is he?” Tobirama repeats, trembling with the herculean effort of controlling his temper. Even so, tufts of hair bob and weave on eddies of chakra, more honest than his words typically are. “If I don’t leave now I will lose—”

Pouncing on the opportunity, Madara looks up through the fringe of his bangs and raises an eyebrow expectantly. While he would normally put some effort into being gracious in his victory, he thinks he deserves at least a little recompense for his interrupted afternoon.

“You’ll what, now?”

“I,” a pause as Tobirama pinches the bridge of his nose in realization, “I will lose Anija again.”

Instantly, the dangerous quality to his eyes—glazed and sharp as glass—eases and the fight leaves him in stages. The way his shoulders sag and his eyelids slip shut are precious gifts that Madara will revisit with no small amount of satisfaction later tonight. It’s one of only a half-dozen moments where his mind was sharper than his husband’s and an event to be commemorated.

“Didn’t think of that did you?” he asks, allowing himself the pleasure of a gentle jibe to tide him over.

“I did not.”

Sighing, Tobirama folds his arms across his chest and looks towards the garden. The soft interplay of light and life slowly curb his ire until the wild current of chakra whipping at their hair and clothing abates. No more than a light zephyr, it caresses the cherry tree and sets its leaves to rising like sails, then disburses completely.

Madara continues to stare, brow softening. Tobirama is such a striking man, strong with an indomitable constitution and a passion that he often likens to that of an Uchiha. Soul-bonding aside, they’re a good match in all of the ways that matter.

“Come, koibito. Sit with me a moment,” he says, patting the floorboards as he busies himself with retrieving a second cup and filling it with the gyokuro he had daringly pilfered from Mito a week prior. It’s telling that he set up his tray with two in mind and judging by the way that red, piercing gaze follows his hands, he knows he’s been caught.

Who cares. He’s allowed to think fondly of his husband on his day off.

Without further prodding, Madara goes back to viewing the garden and waits. Minutes pass in silence until there’s an explosive exhale—dredged from soul deep by the sound of it—and Tobirama’s warmth drops down next to him. Almost immediately, callus-rough palms cradle his jaw, urging Madara to turn, and he gladly sinks into the sweetness of Tobirama’s kiss. It’s a quick, perfunctory press of lips, but a familiar comfort that never fails to return them to center.

Though he would deny it to his dying day, these little domestic moments are what he lives for. Snorting to cover his saccharine thoughts, Madara takes up his tea once more and passes the second cup to Tobirama. “Better?”

“I—yes. I apologize. Today has been,” Tobirama’s brow furrows as he frowns deeply at his lap, “exceedingly trying.”

Another kiss, this time lingering against the tattoo on Tobirama’s cheek long enough for their bond to flare, bright and grounding. Without needing any further prodding, Madara scoots up close enough to rest his head on a strong shoulder and tugs one of Tobirama’s hands away from his cup to tangle their fingers together instead. 

“I heard. All of that work, poof, gone,” Madara summarizes neatly, because even this deeply enamored, he’s still an unabashed ass. “Not that Hashirama doesn’t deserve the thrashing of his Sage-damned life, but you do realize Izuna records all of our drafts? Just ask him to transcribe whatever your idiot brother ruined.”

He leaves unsaid that Izuna began the practice specifically to be able to rake Tobirama over the coals for any inconsistencies between the written documents and the Senju’s testimony in village meetings, not that he ever discovered any. Now it’s simply an ingrained habit to activate his Sharingan for a brief instance as he files.

Tobirama nods in his periphery. “Yes, I’m aware. In the moment I was too angry to recall. Thank you for reminding me, love,” he says softly, pressing his cheek to the top of Madara’s head and squeezing the remaining space from between their clasped hands. “Though, I must point out, my idiot brother is also your idiot friend. Surely some of the blame for his actions is yours.”

Ah. His husband’s mood is obviously improved if Tobirama is taking the opportunity to shove _that_ down his throat again. Fire’s balls, they suit each other well.

“Not by choice,” he points out, tone dark.

Tobirama meets him with an equally somber “Likewise.”

There’s a beat of silence before they’re both laughing until the tea spills and the delicate cups roll off of the engawa to shatter on the gravel below. It doesn’t matter. They learned a long time ago to only stock their home with inexpensive dishware. As Madara’s vision blurs with tears, Tobirama takes advantage of his momentary weakness to steal another kiss, suckling at Madara’s bottom lip before delving further to chase the smooth flavor of green tea.

They break reluctantly, only for Tobirama to gift him with a line of chaste pecks along the curve of his jaw. When Tobirama speaks, his breath is hot against the shell of Madara’s ear, hair tickling his cheek.

“Anija is approaching the extent of my range,” he croons, naturally deep voice dropping into a baritone that Madara can _feel_. “I will lose his signature soon.”

Just barely noted by his own not-insubstantial sensory abilities, Madara can feel the pond crackle to life, spreading a thin skein of dampness over the gravel and greenery of their garden. “Do you want me to hold him down?” he asks, not the slightest bit ashamed at how breathy it comes out.

Tobirama pulls back enough to blind Madara with the way his austere face transforms into something truly beautiful, lopsided grin promising nothing but pain. “When he arrives, you will grapple him to the ground and I will _eviscerate_ him,” he hisses in a way that shoots straight down Madara’s spine.

Overcome, he closes his eyes and swallows against the rising tightness in his chest.

By the Sage, he’s a fool in love and the world at large can eat his gunbai.


End file.
